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We Finally Have a Computer That Can Survive the Surface of Venus (arstechnica.com)
Planet Venus is one of the most inhospitable places in the solar system. The surface temperature there is 470C (878F). This has been one of the key challenges that has prevented us from deeply exploring Venus. Normal chips can only function until around 250C, but it appears, we will soon have a computer that can withstand Venus' weather. From a report on ArsTechnica: Now, researchers out of NASA's Glenn Research Centre appear to have cracked the other big problem with high-temperature integrated circuits: they've crafted interconnects -- the tiny wires that connect transistors and other integrated components together -- that can also survive the extreme conditions on Venus. The NASA Glenn researchers combined the new interconnects with some SiC transistors to create a ceramic-packaged chip. The chip was then placed into the GEER -- the Glenn Extreme Environments Rig, a machine that can maintain Venus-like temperature and pressure for hundreds of hours at a time. The chip, a simple 3-stage oscillator, kept functioning at a steady 1.26MHz for 521 hours (21.7) days before the GEER had to be shut down.
"We Finally Have a Computer..."
"...we may soon have a computer..."
From the don't-count-your-chickens dept. ?
Maybe if we were talking about the Kelvin scale, but even then, 90x is a pretty meaningless way of comparing temperatures. Much better to maybe mention that at 470C:
Read more: http://www.lenntech.com/period...
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Since supposedly men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, it's good to see they've finally created a computer that can survive women.
/ sorry, I'm not really sexist
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
How, as an editor for a tech site, do you hire someone who can't even recognize a total goof in the summary intro? The PRESSURE at the surface of Venus is 90x that of earth.
I'd understand if you had one or two editors posting hundreds of stories a day - one might slip through. But you're barely posting one story an hour to the front page. How do you fuck that up?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I don't even want to know...
So Google says the average temperature on Earth is 16 C, or 289.3 K. 90x that is about 26,000 K.
The article (yes, I looked at it) actually says the pressure is about 90 times that on Earth.
Except 0 is arbitrary in Farenheit... Average Earth temp is 287 kelvin, average Venus temp is 735 kelvin. So really it's only like 2.5x hotter than Earth by any objective measurement. Otherwise you could say a 1 degree F day is infinitely hotter than a 0 degree F day and mathematically on an arbitrary scale, that would be correct.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
call me when you build a computer that can survive the interior of Uranus
First, a computer is a whole lot more than just a chip. How about boards, wire runs, resisters, transistors? But the atmosphere of Venus contains massive amounts of toxic gasses. If we have a computer chip that operates at high temperatures, what is it made of and how quickly does it break down inside the atmosphere of Venus?
So not only don't we have a computer that works on Venus, we don't have chips that work on Venus. TFA says that they may have a chip that operates at high temperatures but since it has not quite been invented yet we can't test the viability of said chip in Venus' atmosphere. Not only am I cynical, but I'm really tired of the chronic hyperbole in seemingly everything.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
lolwut, rushing to first post so you didn't read it properly?
the hard bit is not being cremated by the surface temperature of 470ÂC (878ÂF) or crushed by the atmospheric pressure, which is about 90 times that of Earth, the same as swimming 900 metres under water.
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Why not Rankine? 0 R is 0 K and it has the more granular step size of Fahrenheit, but without the arbitrary zero-point.
lolwut, rushing to criticize before thinking critically? My post was in reference to the synopsis by the OP not the article.
The statement was "the hard bit is not being cremated by the surface temperature of 470C (878F) or crushed by the atmospheric pressure, which is about 90 times that of Earth, the same as swimming 900 metres under water".
It's the atmospheric pressure, not the temperature, that is about 90 times that of Earth
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Because nobody uses Rankine, except when pointing out it exists.
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It's not arbitrary. It's just based on a frigorific mixture of water, ice and ammonium chloride.
Incorrect. Fahrenheit (like Celsius) is a relative measure, for you to measure 90 times the earth's heat (thermal energy), you'd have to use an absolute measurement: Kelvin. Let's do the math. 75 F (earth's temperature) = 273.15 K; 90 times that is: 273.15* 90 = 24,583K which corresponds to 43,789.73 F. It's hot there, but not THAT hot.
It used to be the big thing in (American) thermodynamics and rocket science (combustion efficiency calculations).
Now, not so much.
Except 0 is arbitrary in Farenheit... Average Earth temp is 287 kelvin, average Venus temp is 735 kelvin. So really it's only like 2.5x hotter than Earth by any objective measurement.
Only if you assume a linear scale. Given how much of the interesting stuff happens near 0 K, and how little difference there is between 10,000,000 K and 100,000,000 K, I would think it would be better if we started treating temperature as a logarithmic scale.
Or, put another way, the 448 degree difference between 287 K and 735 K is obviously a lot less significant than the 287 degree difference between 0 K and 287 K.
That extreme pressure should keep them from exploding
I do wonder why the scientific temperature scale isn't logarithmic...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Can't they just encase the thing in some kind of packaging with its own cooling system? Or is it a case of whatever it takes to keep it running on Venus is too fucking big to send to Venus?
The hotter something is relative to its environment the faster the heat moves away. I hope this science can be used to make mainstream desktop chips that can safely operate at much higher temperatures for quieter cooling and better performance.
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One of the (smaller) reasons I dropped out of the ChemE degree I was pursuing was because one day in one of my classes, there was a number written on the board. We asked the prof what it was, and his reply was "That's the ideal gas constant, R. I wrote it there because we'll be using it today". We looked at him funny and said "No it's not. We use R all the time, and it's not that". "Well.... yes it is, but this is the value of R in the units atmosphere gallons per lbmol rankine."
While I appreciate the value of being metrically multilingual, for some reason that just seems horribly *wrong*.
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I just read that the clean-up robots at Fukushima can't withstand the radiation of the site. I wonder if this sort of improvement could be adapted to improve the clean-up hardware. Is temperature and radiation it the same kind of 'heat'?
Except, you're not surviving Venus's weather (btw Venus' would be the possessive for multiple Venu) you're only surviving the temp and pressure. The weather included sulphuric acid rain and other horrible environmental challenges. the temp and pressure are just two of the challenges.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
To be clear, we don't have a computer that can survive on Venus, or anything near that. What the research team made is a ring-buffer, which is a collection of maybe 20-30 transistors arranged in a big circle (with one inverter).
That's a very far cry from even an Intel 8080, which is approximately 4500 transistors. And that's without any RAM, Flash, or anything else. This is an impressive milestone to be sure, but it's nowhere near an Arduino (let alone a full computer).
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Have gnu, will travel.
I do wonder why the scientific temperature scale isn't logarithmic...
Because that would make the really fundamental things like the ideal gas law unnecessarily complicated.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
NASA engineer: "Our grand heat-tolerant computer is reporting back the latest findings from the probe ... it confirms that all the scientific instruments are fried and not returning data."
Table-ized A.I.
The technology sounds like they they may be able to build some kind of ancient computer system to run a probe. No way it will run Linux.
Sure, they'll survive the weather, but won't they just get eaten by dinosaurs? :)
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Fluidics might be difficult. It's slow, and if you want liquid state you'd want to choose something liquid both at the conditions in space near Venus and at near 500 C on the surface. Vapor state is the other possibility - how much pneumatic logic is used, practically speaking?
My first thought was, as you suggested, vacuum tube technology. Ceramics, tungsten and most other common metals are solid at 500 C, although aluminum is weak that high. With the proper material choice, a coated cathode wouldn't even need a heater above 450 C.
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470C? Oh please, my AMD chip runs at least twice as hot as that. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
For it to be obvious, you first have to know the significance. So what makes it significant to you?
The pins coming out of a chip package get called legs sometimes, but the package is not the chip.
My 8th grade teacher Mr. Burgess said that both an apostrophe after the s and an additional 's are correct alternatives for words ending in s, and given his name he would have some incentive on being sure about this.
I just wish we used units that rendered the gas constant unnecessary. I should probably memorize it to more digits than "8,31" so that I don't have to keep looking it up :
I spent the evening flickering into your darkness.
Maybe, 'except, you're not surviving Venereal weather?'
I seem to recall that we only use 'Venusian' because 'Venereal' was already taken by the medical community.....
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waaait.
There's exactly 100K between water boiling and melting point; Kelvin increments the same as Celsius.
So, 100 Joules will bring 1cm^3 of water from freezing to boiling temperature...
Joule is kg*m^2/s^2 - 1000cm^3 of water is 1kg. That's the origin of meter unit (redefined later).
Second is 1/86400 of Earth's synodic day.
But kilogram definition is arbitrary, "this here cylinder of iridium alloy".
How the hell do we arrive at 100 times [mass of a certain iridium cylinder] times [side of cube of water the mass of 1000 such cylinders] divided by [1/86400 of Earth's synodic day] squared being the energy to bring water of mass a thousandth of the mass of that cylinder from freezing to boiling?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
Reading the article about the Soviet experience with Venus there seemed a pretty heavy reliance on "Pyrotechnic charges"...
Soviet Project Manager: "Vere having a problem with abc operating under extreme pressure..."
Soviet Engineer "Have we blown it up yet? Ve could try blowing it up first..."
Also kinda surprised that things like pyrotechnic charges wouldn't accidentally go off under heat/pressure/corrosion.
replying to self. We don't. You confused Joules with calories.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
NO wonder it is all CAD, but seldom CAM.
Cooler by the lake.
Venus and planetary science have a historical role in global warming. I thought I'd quote some big "skeptics" and swap out earth for venus to make a satirical point. You need not know the history to get the point.
Moderators must have taken it seriously... guess I have to make it funny or something.
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There appear to be variants, but I'd not heard of sal ammoniac being in the mix until your post; just ice, water and salt (sodium chloride, "table salt"). It's likely that the materials weren't particularly pure though.
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